Controlling pest populations is essential to human health, modern agriculture, food storage, and hygiene. There are more than ten thousand species of pests that cause losses in agriculture and the world-wide agricultural losses amount to billions of U.S. dollars each year. Accordingly, there exists a continuous need for new pesticides and for methods of producing and using such pesticides.
The Insecticide Resistance Action Committee (IRAC) has classified insecticides into categories based on the best available evidence of the mode of action of such insecticides. Insecticides in the IRAC Mode of Action Group 18 are ecdysone receptor agonists, such as diacylhydrazine compounds. The insecticides in this class are believed to mimic the moulting hormone, ecdysone, which induces a moult of the affected insects. Examples of insecticides in this class are chromafenozide, halofenozide, methoxyfenozide, tebufenozide, and fufenozide.
Although the rotational application of insecticides having different modes of action may be adopted for good pest management practice, this approach does not necessarily give satisfactory insect control. Furthermore, even though combinations of insecticides have been studied, a high synergistic action has not always been found.